The general design and construction of carriages that retain and align print cartridges in printers and scan these print cartridges through print zones is well known. Examples of the patents that have issued in the field of ink jet printing technology include:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,836 entitled "Printhead Cartridge and Carriage Assembly" by Ta et al. issued Jul. 5, 1988; PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,872,026 entitled "Ink-jet Printer with Printhead Carriage Alignment Mechanism" by Rasmussen et al. issued Oct. 3, 1989; PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,907, 018 entitled "Printhead-Carriage Alignment and Electrical Interconnect Lock-in Mechanism" by Pinkerpell issued Mar. 6, 1990; and PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,063 entitled "Spring Cartridge Clamp for Inkjet Printer Carriage" by Rhoads issued Feb. 21, 1995.
The electronics in a printer that fire an ink jet print cartridge on command are connected to the electrical contact pads on a print cartridge by a flexible circuit. Such a flexible circuit is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,097 entitled "Near-linear Spring Connect Structure for Flexible Interconnect Circuits" by Harmon. Good electrical contact and precise mechanical alignment are required at the interface between the raised bumps on the flexible circuit and contact pads on the print cartridge.
One problem that has developed with such flexible circuits is that during assembly of the carriage, the flexible circuits can buckle slightly. In other words, the flexible circuit can develop high and low areas and the required electrical contact and mechanical alignment may not be achieved.
It will be apparent from the foregoing, there is a need for an approach that allows the flexible circuit to flatten itself out during assembly of the carriage and to remove any unevenness in its surface.